Magnetic tape is commonly used for storage of digital data. The magnetic tape is spooled on at least one reel in a cartridge that is insertable into a digital data transfer apparatus in which data can be written onto the tape and/or data can be read from the tape. Such data transfer apparatus, which may be referred to as a tape drives, typically includes a tape head for one or both of reading and/or writing data from or to the tape head.
Known tape drives are generally designed to use a predetermined size tape cartridge that contains a tape having a known width. Known cartridge loading devices of tape drives are generally designed to be used with a particular size of cartridge. Such devices conventionally include means for ensuring that only cartridges of the correct size can be inserted and then only when the cartridge is correctly oriented. A feature of known cartridge loading devices is that they are made rigid so that cartridges of the wrong size or incorrectly oriented cartridges cannot be forced into the tape drive, except by the exertion of an unnatural amount of force.
One format for data storage in a helical scan tape drive is Digital Data Storage (DDS). Various versions of DDS exist, but each version uses the same width tape in Digital Audio (DAT) cartridges, including DAT72 and DAT160. The tape width is approximately 4 mm. There is a demand for more and more data storage capacity. This has, to some extent, been met by improved reading and writing techniques that have allowed increased amounts of data to be stored, without changing the tape length or width. However, ultimately, the storage capacity of a given size of tape has a limit.
One solution to the problem of data storage capacity is to increase the width of the tape. Of course, a greater width provides more storage capacity. However, since the cartridge loading devices of tape drives are designed to accept a particular size cartridge, if wider tapes are used, tape drives with loading devices able to accept a larger cartridge must be provided. This then provides the user with the problem that legacy format tape cartridges would not be usable with the new tape drive and so it would be necessary to maintain more than one tape drive or transfer existing stored data to the wider tape.